Wicked Serendipity
by Stratagem Blue
Summary: Her music was the only thing that made his wretched existence bearable, and he would keep her with him always. But that music is beginning to fade, and he must make a choice... Oneshot


Disclaimer: I do not own the Phantom of the Opera.

A/N: Welcome to my first oneshot. This is just a simple retelling of the infamous end to Phantom, with recognizable moments and some of my own invention. Yet the result will still be the same. This is entirely Leroux based, except for one mention towards ALW. I wanted a more in-depth farewell scene than either the book, the musical, or the movie could provide. A narrative to the Persian, (who, by the way, makes no appearance in this), just wasn't good enough for me. I wanted more interaction and insight into emotion; ultimately to make it more human. I hope. To explore the most passionate and tragic ending that I could was my goal, and I hope I have succeeded. Apologies in advance for any mistakes. Please, _please_, review and tell me what you think.

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Wicked Serendipity

Night. It was always an endless night amidst the dripping walls and unearthly stillness of his shadow realm, receding out over the lake in waves of melancholy. The many lighted candles stayed the darkness but a little, tiny spheres of luminosity that were perilous against the oppression of constant darkness. The brightest point in that hidden underground came from the dais of the organ, surrounded by magnificent candelabras and covered in faded pages of haunting melodies. It was the core of his meager and translucent calm, for only when he was creating music did all thoughts of inhumanity and possession and madness evaporate like the fog at sunrise, leaving in its wake the simple complexity of passion and sound.

Yet the music he yearned to make, the beautiful rapture of his own flesh, his _voice_, he could no longer pursue. Such music would no doubt shatter his fragile Christine, so delicate and slight in her solitude and grief, still so despairingly quiet within the confines of her room, where her unnatural silence disturbed the familiar hush that he had known for years.

Christine. His living wife.

His thoughts had never branched so far as to contend with a _living_ wife, for no part of his mind had ever conceived in the idea of marriage in death. And he was dead, was he not? The existence of the mask was a festering wound that constantly ached with the truth of what lay beneath. He was Death himself, the images of the skeletal form and hollowed skull made real in his person, the sickly skin pulled taut over the crown of the head, the empty cavity where a nose would grace the normal man, and the thin, pallid hands devoid of the warmth of human vitality.

At most, his single and obsessive craving had been to share one glorious moment within the sphere of her glow, to have her near him as his own depleted soul was swept from the earth. He had once desired her to be his, to have over the oncoming years as the only true companion who could soften the absolute misery of wicked serendipity and its cruel indulgences. Yet the appearance of a certain young man, the blind and foolish lover who had once rescued a scarf from the sea, had rendered all such ideas of splendor forever unobtainable. In this perverse triangle of tragic design, only love in death could prove to be a definite and perceptible reality.

But that reality was never made real. She had come to him, had chosen to condemn herself to the shadow and thus remain alive, breathing the solitude with him in that gothic kingdom beneath the opera house. Not to die with him, but to _live_ with him. She had turned the scorpion, and now were they bound in life.

A shadow moved between the shadows, and his weary mind insisted that it was merely the phantoms it created at times to give movement to the stillness. Then the form shifted again, and took on definition and hues of a softer blend than black. Christine stood there, still wearing the wedding dress from the same night when he had spirited her away from the jail scene on stage. Her golden hair lay in limp clumps about her face, which was ashen and insipid with deep hollows beneath the eyes. And she was thin. So dreadfully thin.

Yet even in her despair she was radiant, brighter than any candle still aglow, a flourishing blossom in the endless winter of his lair. But some vague part of his malformed conscience wondered, as it always did when he beheld her in sorrow, how long it would be before she wilted into the nothing of his greed, how long before she faded away.

And as always, the thought disquieted him into motion.

"Christine," he whispered, for his voice constricted too much to reach a greater volume. "Is something wrong?"

"I just wanted...to step out for awhile," she replied softly, and took a few tentative steps forward.

"Of course," he said, and laid his pen to rest by the composition he had been working on. He rose from his chair and made his way over to her with an eerie elegance that bespoke of times in greater halls, deep in the heart of Persia.

As he drew near his movement became cautious, as though unsure if he should approach her at all. She bowed her head, averting her mournful eyes, and shame burned in his throat like a merciless bile. With more daring than surely he possessed, he slipped a finger under her chin and lifted her head so that he could meet her gaze, the cinching in his throat becoming tighter at the opaqueness that he found there. Her wonderful auburn eyes, now so bleak and forlorn.

"Christine," he whispered again, turning her name into its own melody, and she closed her eyes. "Please Christine, no more despair, no more anguish. There is music here, vibrant and passionate and tangible enough to weave dreams from its chords. Come, let us sing together."

"No, Erik," she said, her tone resolute as she opened her eyes to break the enchantment of his voice. "I've not the heart to sing anymore."

"Don't say that," he responded, trying to overcome the dread he felt at her words. "We will not always stay here in the damp of this...this _cave_. We'll take walks along the Sine at night, and visit the extensive chateaus in the south with their vast and wondrous gardens and...and we can even leave France, if you want. We'll travel to the farthest reaches in our power, to look at the pyramids of Egypt or to see how the stars shine in Greece-"

"But always at night, when the rest of the world sleeps," Christine said candidly, cutting off the flow of his hopeful tirade. He caught the essence of her implications, trying vainly to ignore it yet knowing inevitably that it was true. The realization did not make it any less poignant. "And whether or not I see all the marvels that exist on all the continents of the earth, it will never be enough. I could never see any of it for its worth because..." And then, barely audible, "Because it will never be enough."

"I...I cannot survive without you," he said, and his voice wavered horribly with mounting emotion. "Surely you must know that?"

She turned her head from him, but not before he saw the fruitless expression of pity that was etched on her face. "Yes, Erik. I know that."

He had endured so much in pursuit of her love; the inexplicable joy of her trust in his false portrayal as the Angel of Music, the maddening desire for her affection, for even her presence, the unspeakable rendering of his heart at the sight of her in the arms of another. A dire and inconsolable need was arising in him, as relentless as the siege of an awesome storm. The yearning to explain, to erase that hollow emptiness that he saw in her now became a reckless endeavor, and he seized upon it in desperation. He reached forward and clasped her hands between his own, needing the reassurance of her warmth and volatility to voice that deepest misery which lurked in the yawning caverns of his soul. Her eyes were startled and bewildered, searching his own to find whatever it was that he needed to give.

"It isn't that I don't want to live without you, it's that I can't. My heart has not the strength to carry on alone knowing that you are the sole reason for which it beats. It was all darkness and silence before you. Even my music was denied fulfillment, for it was always made in solitude without anyone to share in its ecstasy. And always...always the depression of the shroud. No compassion, never just one benevolent glance thrown my way. My first scrap of clothing was a mask, an unfeeling piece of leather given to me by my own mother! I never heard kindness or empathy in a voice directed toward me until I became your Angel. Don't you see, Christine? I was suffocating before I breathed you in. You are the only sunrise I will ever have, to bask in and feel some trace of life. I can't...I can't...dear God! I can't be alone anymore. I've suffered enough, haven't I? Damn the shadow! Damn whatever sick plan Fate has invested for me! I can't be alone anymore, never...never..." He drew in a deep shuddering breath, such exhaustion and agony in the sigh that came after. Yet for all that, he ended in a whisper. "I can't be alone anymore."

The tears had come, burning in the restriction of his throat and searing the brim of his eyes. He stared down at her with pathetic uncertainty, his breathing ragged and shallow. Something had yielded and softened in her gaze, causing him to be insecure at what would come next. He still held her hands within his own. With a gentle prowess, she pulled away her left and laid it against the cool exterior of the mask. He realized a second before it happened what she meant to do, and a sudden and overwhelming panic consumed his every thought. For a moment. Yet a sensation arose within him, one of despondent resolve and inescapable acceptance, and so he remained still. He looked resolutely at the floor and braced himself, and when the horrid feel of exposure rushed over the distorted skin of his face, he hissed as though he were undergoing physical pain.

From the corner of his vision, he saw the mask slip listlessly from her fingers and land with a soft thump upon the ground.

After several tense and excruciating seconds of deafening stillness, Erik finally raised his eyes to her face. There was no horror in her expression, no disgust or terror that revealed a deeper loathing. There only lingered that overall sense of pity. She stepped forward and before he could even guess at her motivation, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed the smooth flesh of his forehead.

He closed his eyes tightly, never having felt such beauty in the splendor of touch. The tears poured down his face like liquid streams of sorrow from deep sockets were his eyes lay embedded, set far back into the skull. Her lips were at his cheeks, scorching the tepid flesh with heat as she exhaled. His hand moved along the soft curve of her shoulder and wove its way into the folds of her hair, like silk beneath the pads of his fingertips. He felt her hands against his temples, cupping his face with heartrending tenderness. She pulled back from him slightly, and he opened his eyes for a moment to see her staring avidly up at him, appearing more lovely than in any memory he carried ever after.

"You're not alone anymore, Erik," she whispered against his skin. "You're not alone anymore."

And then, with terrible understanding and forgiveness, she lightly pressed her mouth against his own.

It was chaste and gentle, without the incentive of raw passion and lust. When they finally broke apart, he remained immobile, his eyes opening slowly as if for the first time. She was searching his face with concern and affection, and it was because of this that he began to sob, a compressing veil of doubt and self-loathing beginning to crush his obsessive surety. Despite all that he had put her through in the past few months, the lies and deceit, the commands of his lesser being and the ever constant fear, (taking her from the one she truly loved), she still cared for him. Never in the way that his introverted heart had insisted every human being should be loved, with the intent of marriage, but she still wanted to comfort him, to ease the principal mainstay of his pain. He was still her Angel, after all.

With humbled poise, he placed the gold wedding band in her little hand. The one she had lost. The one he had found, and kept for her. His living bride.

He fell to his knees at her feet, weeping uncontrollably and gasping for air. He pitifully reached for the mask, the depraved source of security for most of his life, and felt warmth touch the skin of his hand. He saw that it was a single tear drop, like a liquid diamond shining in the dusk, and realized that she was crying softly above him. He could imagine her face, beautiful and incandescent, the eyes over bright as her tears slipped down the curve of her cheek, mingling and intermixing with his own. Scorn and intolerance and mockery had ever been the tradition of human nature in reaction to what lay beneath the mask, but never this. No one had ever cried for him, cried _with_ him. Had he even dared to dream as much?

He remained that way for some time, trying to hold on to whatever slim prospect of heaven he had just been graced with. After awhile, he realized that Christine was not as close as she had been, and that he could no longer hear the faint intake of her breath. Slowly and with great torment, he raised the mask and placed it delicately on his face. He was not surprised that it did not feel as natural as before. It had always been an extension of himself, conforming over the years until it became a native part of his being. Yet it had been cast aside, if only for a moment, and now it was simply a mask. Nothing more.

He stood on hollow legs, shaking slightly from the exertions of his tears. Christine stood impassively near the door to her bedroom, an unfathomable emotion lurking just beneath the surface of her eyes. He could only stare at her, loving the texture of her hair and the creamy blush of her skin and the rosy flesh of her lips - and knowing what he must do. His very soul ached within him, cried out as though it were being severed in two, but he had already decided.

Because he realized as she turned and went back inside her room, with so much regret and loss in her young form, that she would never sing again. If he kept her here, she would never sing again. And that, above all else, was simply unbearable.

* * *

She lay upon the coverlets in the familiar state of indifference she had known since falling into his dark world. Her passion had dissolved, and in its place a terrible numbness had set in, making an endless winter of her heart. The only thing that had stirred within her icy gloom had been Erik, speaking in his heavenly voice of far off lands and beautiful sights, of warmth and stars and gardens. How badly she had wanted to believe him! To envelop herself inside the impossible dream that he conjured up for her and pretend it was freedom. And the tragically beautiful opening of his heart...

So much pain and anguish, so many _years_, had come forth that she had been overwhelmed, and for a moment, her mind had forgotten its own desolation and latched onto his. A universe of agony lay in the ambit of his eyes, full of hate and ridicule and prejudice. The taste of him, which hung like a bittersweet syrup on her lips, had brought tears from the depths of her compassion. She had cried dearly for her Angel, as he had made soothing music for her own pain and loneliness when she had needed it most, giving her strength when there was none to be found elsewhere.

Yet the light was over. It had extinguished with the sunset, and there would be no dawn. She existed now solely in his darkness, and there alone.

The only thing that gave her courage to go on was Raoul. The thought that he was alive, that he was somewhere in this very city, and that he had a future was all that sustained her through the empty hours. The memory of his lovely eyes, his sincere and gentle nature. The sensuous touch of his skin. She closed her eyes and saw them by the sea, a blanket draped gloriously over the white sands of the beach and the soft music of a violin drifting on the breeze. A burning arose in her throat, and it seemed she was not so detached as she had supposed.

The door creaked behind her, but she did not turn.

A few seconds later the mattress sank under his weight as he sat down beside her. The temperature of the room appeared to drop ever so slightly at his presence. She continued to face away from him, still wrapped within the folds of her memories and her apathy. The quiet pressed on, and she wished vainly for music, his music, any music, to fill it. And in a way, music did come.

"Christine," he whispered softly, and reluctantly, she turned to him.

A chill passed through her at the sight of those haunting yellow eyes, glowing like two distant points on the horizon. Something had changed. His demeanor, his posture, and even the air of the mask were somehow different than what she had known. Fear of uncertainty clutched at her senses, creating a drastic opposition of emotion in her. After so many hours of nothingness, of letting the cold of his lair seep into her mind, she had believed that death would be a welcome visitor to end the absolute oblivion of this reality. Yet now, with the potential for such an end before her, she found that hope had not deserted her entirely. Some trivial part of her had kept alive the idea of sunlight and open vistas and Raoul, looking handsome and endearing in the warm glow of that afternoon on the rooftop.

Then, just as quickly, the fear passed. If this was death, at least the torture of being able to dream would cease.

"Christine, I want you to come with me," he said, staring down at her with that solidified expression. "I have something to show you."

"Whatever it is, I don't want to see it," she replied, and turned her eyes to look up into the dark of the ceiling.

"Please," he whispered. The vulnerability in that tone nearly broke her. "I won't hurt you this time. I promise."

"Why should I believe you?" she asked, but not with anger. Her voice was distant, and tired. Utterly and completely tired.

He paused for a moment, seemingly out of the knowledge that he didn't have a reason. Then, "What have you to lose?"

The horrible truth of it was that she didn't. She looked at him, his hand held beseechingly toward her, gloved in elegant black leather. His pose suggested that he could remain that way for as long as it took. _What have you to lose?_ She slipped her hand into the embrace of his own.

Their journey was surreal, the embodiment of floating in a dreamlike trance. They glided soundlessly across the black waters of the subterranean lake, the prow of the boat disappearing in the obscurity of the fog. When they docked, her hand found its way to Erik's. He led her silently through the underground labyrinth of hidden passageways, striding incessantly from one dark corridor to the next with the ease of someone taking an afternoon walk. Things moved in the shadow, noises crept from beyond the reaches of her vision, and Christine remembered with morbid wonder her first trip below the opera house, in what she now recognized as her descent into his possession. From some remote place, echoing like the laments of a wandering soul, there came music. It followed them as they ascended, for she felt the floor rising steadily beneath her. The sounds of his breathing and the rustle of his clothes came like whispers in the dark, his hand the only perceptible veracity to remind her that she was truly awake. That otherworldly music filled her ears, captivated her, enchanted her, and just as she realized what it was -

They were outside.

Christine's breathing became thin and imbalanced, and the stars, bright and dazzling in the velvet of the sky, blurred before the onslaught of her emotion. She closed her eyes and the tears that rested there brimmed over, hot and rejuvenating against the pallor of her skin. For the first time in an age, a smile rose to her lips, alien and strange after so much solitude and heartache. Erik stood quietly nearby, and she sensed that he had something to say, but was letting her enjoy the majesty of the moment. When she felt she had absorbed as much of the open air as humanly possible, she turned to him, the smile dissolving slowly at the sight of his berated form.

"Go on," he said, his voice deadly in its bleakness.

"What?" Her own voice barely escaped through the suppression of her shock. _Oh God, does he mean what I think he means? _

"I'm...I'm letting you go. You're free of me. That young man of yours...will be waiting for you. I released him from the Communists' Dungeon...while you rested in your room. I left him in front of the Garnier. He'll...he'll be awake by now. And waiting for you." The words fell with a flat resonance on the air. The night seemed to swallow them up in its mystery and vastness, leaving only Erik behind like a statue of resolve. And inhuman suffering.

She took a few cautious steps toward him, despite her initial instinct to take her chance and run. She had to know. "Why?"

"Because...," he began, and his voice cracked. His own tears finally came, slipping below the edge of the mask and gleaming with wretched loveliness in the moonlight. He reached out to her, his fingertips almost gracing her cheek, and then curled his hand back, as though to touch her would be devastating. His gaze was steady and intense, completely enthralled by her. When he spoke, his tone was more calm and definite than she had ever heard it. "Because I love you too much to let you fade away."

He bowed his head, finally succumbing to his shame. She could only stare at him with morose fascination, marveling that one could endure so much hatred and angst and yet retain so much fervor and love. She could not bear to leave him there, rotting within his self imposed prison of guilt. With a calm reserve that she hadn't known existed in her, she reached forward and took hold of one of those thin, artistic hands. Gently she removed the black leather glove, exposing the frail and delicate fingers that had always appeared so deathlike in prior memory. The gold wedding band slipped easily from her left hand, and when she laid it tenderly in his palm, she used her other hand to curl his fingers around it. The gesture expressed more sentiment than any other could express, and it was in this way, this inevitable and simple and heart shattering way, that she let the Angel of Music purge himself from her soul. This was how she said goodbye.

* * *

It seemed to him that she put forth her forehead, just a little, as though offering him a chance to say goodbye in his own way. He stepped forward, taking in the sight of her resplendent blue eyes, and shyly laid a dry kiss upon her forehead. The feel of her skin on his lips was like the first draught of spring, cascades of renewal and new life pouring from the ends of an inert winter. He had never kissed anyone, of his own accord, and she did not fall lifeless at his feet from an unspeakable death of his contact. She did not run away, and he savored that last moment as though it were the only one he had ever lived, relishing the dulcet flavor of her spirit and knowing he had never loved anything, not even his music, as much as he loved her.

He still held the ring. When she pulled back, he stared at his closed fist for a moment, let a trembling sigh escape his lips, and then raised his head to look at her, taking his last few breaths while the source of his music still lingered before him.

Three words. Three beautiful, everlasting, damning words. "Thank you, Erik."

She began to recede, waning like the mirage of the most splendid dream upon waking, too heavenly and perfect to bring into reality. With every diminishing footstep his heart slowed a little, every beat pounding with less passion and losing invigoration to sustain him. He realized now that just as she would not have sang in the depths of his lair, his demented solitude, he could not sing without her. He would never again entice the strings of a violin or grace the eloquent keys of the organ, nor compose a single melody from the design of his being. The music was ended. She turned at the corner of the avenue, glancing back for one final look, and for the only time in his life, he smiled. He loved her. For one blessed moment in time, he had walked among angels, and that was enough.

And then she was gone.

He watched the stars wither until a glow appeared in the east, and then he descended once more below the opera house. It was there that he eventually passed on into the unknown, dying of love, resting upon his elegant bed among his many worthless treasures, wilting like a feeble flower at first snow. He would not be buried in the earth, for Death did not dwell there. It came to collect its souls as they hovered on the surface, hanging in the presence of familiar sights and sounds, and what was put below ground was only the remains of what had existed in life. But Erik had existed only for his music, only for Christine, and with both gone there was no soul for Death to come for, thus his home and hideaway, the architectural wonder of his madness, became his tomb. There would his form lay untouched as time passed for centuries more in the city of Paris.

Yet as the darkest darkness overcame him, as the final mystery fell upon him, there was music. Not his own, and not Christine's, but something more ethereal and otherworldly than any music he had ever heard, like the phantom of a melody. It filled his ears, captivated him, enchanted him, and as his depleted soul was swept from the earth, it followed him like the promise of a kinder serendipity in a world less wicked. That wondrous and ghostly music.

The music of the night.

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A/N: I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. Thanks to my beta reader, Counter Spark, for proof reading and encouragement. And thanks to all of you who plan to review my oneshot, because I really appreciate it. See ya! 


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